Adam turned his head to sneak another glance at the woman sitting on the couch beside him. He had one arm thrown around her shoulders to support her, and her head was resting gently against his upper arm. She tilted her head to look up and meet his eyes, and he felt his stomach flip over inside of him as her mouth curved into a smile.

“I love you,” he whispered so softly it was almost inaudible.

Jane reached up with one hand and cupped the side of his face. “I love you too,” she whispered back.

“Pow!”

Adele had been standing on the couch cushion beside her father, but she chose that moment to fling herself headfirst across both of their laps. Jane just barely caught her daughter with one hand before Adele did a face plant into the arm of the couch.

“Adele, cut it out!” The smile on Adam’s face was replaced by a frown of concern, but the little girl had already squirmed free of her mother’s grasp and was scampering back to Adam’s side of the couch to launch herself again. “You need to be gentle,” he told his daughter firmly, blocking her from climbing back onto the couch cushion. “You’re supposed to be helping me take care of your mother, remember? We talked about this.”

“I’m fine!” Jane interjected, laughing. “Come here, Adele.” She reached out one arm toward her daughter. “Come sit on my lap.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Adam said, watching nervously as Adele ran to Jane.

“It’s fine,” Jane said, placing one hand on his knee and squeezing gently to reassure him. “Really. I’m fine.”

Adele was climbing into Jane’s lap now and Adam put his arm back around Jane’s shoulder to help steady her. He pressed his mouth to side of her head and kissed her softly on the temple. “Just tell me if you start to get tired.”

“Watch the movie, blabbermouth,” Adele said, reaching over to poke her father in the chest.

“Yeah,” Jane chimed in, her shoulders shaking with laughter. “Watch the movie, blabbermouth!”

One corner of Adam’s mouth quirked up into a half-smile as he turned his attention back toward the television screen. They were just at the part where little orphan Annie found the stray dog, and he tried his best to focus on the plot, but he couldn’t get his mind past the thoughts that kept whirring though it. Jane was home. She was here. And she could walk and talk and smile and laugh and squeeze his leg and hold her daughter in her arms. He felt his chest tighten again, and he held his breath and pressed his lips together firmly for a moment as he struggled to get ahold of himself.

He had been concerned how Adele would react – having her mother, a total stranger, back in her life so abruptly – but Adele had taken it all in stride as a perfectly natural turn of events. She wanted nothing but to be in her mother’s presence, and Jane returned the sentiment. Adam had been struggling with both of them to set limits. The doctors had told him not to let Jane get overtired. It had only been a week since she’d even opened her eyes for the first time. The doctors were optimistic – a full spontaneous recovery, they called it. But still, they had warned him, she should take it easy. Don’t let her push herself too far too fast.

Of course, there was no telling that to Jane. She wanted to do everything, all at once. He felt like he was doing nothing but fighting her ever since she’d been home, trying to convince her to pace herself. She’d wanted them all to go out for a walk after dinner this evening, but he’d put his foot down. “Maybe you should lie down,” he’d suggested instead.

“I’m fine!” she’d laughed. “I don’t need to lie down.”

Adele had been the one to suggest watching a movie, and Adam had been forced to accept it as the best compromise he was likely to get. His daughter had chosen Annie from her DVD collection, and Adam had looked at her curiously when he saw what she’d selected. It had only been a few short weeks since he and Adele and a different Jane had sat on this same couch and watched this same movie together. Had Adele been thinking of that when she picked it? If she had, she didn’t give any indication.

Adam glanced again now at mother and daughter snuggled together on the couch beside him, but his attention was caught by something out of the corner of his eye. He brought his face closer to the backrest of the couch behind Jane’s head to get a better look, and he had to stifle an involuntary gasp when he realized what it was. A long, thin strand of hair. Orange-gold, flickering like a flame in the light from the TV screen. He stared at it for a moment. Had Jane seen it? She hadn’t said anything.

Anyway, it was just a piece of hair, snagged in the upholstery. No reason to feel guilty. Not like the strands of red that kept turning up upstairs among the bed sheets. He’d noticed one on his pillowcase, that first night with Jane back home, and he was still counting his blessings that he’d managed to snag it before Jane noticed. He’d gone over every inch of his bed linens after that, tempted to throw all of it into the fireplace and put a match to it. Destroy the evidence. He’d settled for throwing it all into the laundry instead, re-running the wash cycle four times before he’d felt safe returning the sheets to the bed.

Adam glanced guiltily at Jane’s face now to see if she was following his gaze, but she hadn’t moved. She had her face pressed into the top of Adele’s head, and he saw Adele’s eyelids were already starting to droop closed. He reached out with one hand and plucked the hair from the backrest, jamming it hastily into his pocket and standing up from the couch in one fluid motion.

“Come on, little girl,” he said, reaching down to pick Adele up out of Jane’s lap. “Time for bed.”

“But I’m not tired!” Adele whined as he moved to carry her out of the room.

“It’s late,” Adam insisted. “Come on, I’ll sing you a lullaby.”

“I want Mommy to sing it,” Adele protested.

“I’ll come too,” Jane replied, pushing herself up off of the couch.

“No,” Adam insisted, shaking his head. “Adele, your mother is tired.”

“No, I’m not,” Jane contradicted him firmly. “I’m coming too. I’m fine.”

She started moving toward the door and up the stairs before he could get another word out, and Adam had no choice but to follow as he carried the drowsy child in his arms.

“Should we sing Goodnight Goodnight?” he asked, as he began to help Adele out of her clothes and into her nightgown.

Jane gave him a funny look. “Goodnight Goodnight? You sing that as a lullaby?”

Adam shrugged awkwardly. “What would you have me sing her? Harder To Breathe?"

He watched Jane's face as she mentally ran through the lyrics, her eyes widening with horror when she got to the line he had in mind. "Like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams..."

"No?" he smirked at her. "Which one, then? Kiwi?”

“What’s Kiwi?” Adele asked, looking back and forth between her parents.

Jane rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, Daddy," she said. "What's Kiwi?"

He paused to think of an answer that would satisfy his daughter’s insatiable curiosity. “It’s a kind of fruit,” he said after a moment, looking at Adele. “It’s just a dumb song I wrote once about some fruit.”

“I want to sing that one!”

Adam looked at his wife. She had her mouth clamped closed, but the corners were turning up the way they always did when she was trying and failing to suppress laughter. “I know,” Jane said, taking pity on him and turning her attention back to Adele. “Let’s sing that one from the movie.”

Jane broke into song before Adele had a chance to protest further, and Adam recognized the words to Tomorrow, the last song the little orphan had been singing before they’d turned the TV off just now – the one she sang to the stray dog after she rescued it from its near-miss with death and brought it home to live happily ever after instead.

The sun'll come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow
There'll be sun.

Just thinkin' about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow
Till there's none!

Adam took a deep breath, watching them sing but unable to make a sound as he stood there, buffeted by the waves of emotion rushing in at him. Not love, exactly. Not happiness. Not right at this moment, anyway. No, what he was feeling at this moment was relief – a relief so pure and so profound it took his breath away.

Relief. Relief that Jane was home. Relief that he hadn’t been caught.

Relief that the long, dark night had ended, and the new day was dawning at last.

***

Jane eased herself down onto the stained tile floor of the motel bathroom and looked at her watch. Five minutes to go, based on the instructions on the back of the box she had picked up at a drugstore earlier that day. Her head felt heavy, and she shut her eyes for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass. The room stopped spinning, but she couldn’t stop the images dancing endlessly through her head no matter how hard she tried to drown them out.

It was just that it had all gone bad so quickly. That’s what had her head spinning like this. She’d woken up one day in the bed of the man she loved – the man she thought was going to be her future – and the next day she was on a train out of town, out of his life forever.

One moment she'd been standing there in a hospital room, arguing with him over the best way to raise his daughter – and the next moment she could only watch in puzzlement as he broke off what he was saying mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open with a look of absolute shock.

“What?” she’d said. “Adam, what is it?”

He’d pushed past her without answering, falling to his knees at the side of the hospital bed. “Jane,” she’d heard him whisper. And she knew it wasn’t her name he was saying. She’d just stood there awkwardly as he’d gathered the woman in the bed into his arms. “Jane, Jane,” he kept repeating. “Adam,” she’d heard the weak voice answer back.

He’d turned and looked back over his shoulder, and she saw his face had gone dead white. “Go,” he’d said. “Take Adele. Take her home.” His chest was heaving up and down as he spoke. “And where the hell is the fucking nurse?”

It was well past midnight before she'd seen him again. Marcy had taken the truck and gone back to the hospital when she heard what had happened. Jane had watched from the kitchen when the two of them finally came home that night. Marcy had hugged Adam wordlessly before heading upstairs to sleep, but Adam had stayed for a moment, lingering in the kitchen where Jane was waiting up for him. She’d met his eyes, but no words came. Not at first. What was there to say?

“Is there any coffee?” he’d asked her.

“I’ll make some,” she’d responded, grateful for the excuse to turn her back to him. “What—“ she’d struggled to make her mouth form the question she wanted to ask. “I mean, is she—“

“She’s awake,” he’d said. “She’s talking. She’s sitting up.”

Jane had nodded, keeping her eyes on the coffee cup she was filling. “That’s good,” she’d said, turning to face him. “Right?”

“Yeah,” he’d answered hoarsely, reaching out to take the cup from her. “It’s good.” And then she’d watched as his face broke into a smile, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud – a look of pure joy she’d never seen on his face in all the time she had known him. “It’s a goddamn fucking miracle,” he'd said.

She’d wanted to tell him she was happy for him, but those weren’t the words that came out when she opened her mouth to reply. “So I guess you won’t be needing my services around here anymore,” she heard herself say instead.

He’d looked down then, the smile fading from his face as he stared into his mug and stirred the black coffee with a spoon. “She’s my wife,” he’d said, not taking his eyes from the coffee cup. “She’s Adele’s mother.”

“I know. I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll be on the next train out tomorrow.”

“Amy—” He looked up at her suddenly, realizing what he’d just said. “Jane. Shit. I meant Jane—“

She’d felt her wall of self-control start to crumble then, and she’d put her hand up to her mouth for a moment as she struggled to regain her composure.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said softly, putting the coffee cup back down on the counter. He’d come over to her and put his arms around her.

“It’s OK, Adam,” she’d said into his chest. “I can be Amy if that’s what you need me to be.”

He’d held her there for a long moment, and then, ever so softly, she heard him begin to sing.

And when the daylight comes I'll have to go,
But tonight I'm gonna hold you so close.
‘Cause in the daylight we'll be on our own,
But tonight I need to hold you—

“Don’t,” she’d said, pushing him away. “Please, don’t—don’t pretend that song belongs to me.” She’d spun around then and fled upstairs before he could witness her tears.

When she opened her bedroom door the next morning she’d found an envelope propped outside. He must have left it there for her before heading back to the hospital, and she’d ripped it open greedily, hungry for whatever words of farewell he’d thought to write to her. Inside, she’d found a wad of cash – it must have been a thousand dollars at least – and a check for two weeks’ pay.

She’d felt her gorge rise in her throat and just barely made it to the bathroom before she was sick. She’d known what she had to do as she was washing up afterward. As much as she could use the money, she knew she couldn’t keep it. She couldn’t stomach it. She couldn’t stomach what that would make her – living in his house, eating his food, sleeping in his bed, and getting paid for her trouble when it was over. She’d pocketed the paycheck, but she’d stuffed the cash back into the envelope. She’d left it there for him next to the bathroom sink – her key to the house and a white envelope stuffed with cash, with one word scribbled on it as a hasty afterthought:

“Rent.”

She’d been on her way downstairs when she’d heard a noise from Adele’s room. Adele had opened her door and was peeking out, her little face pinched with anxiety. “Are you sick?”

“No honey,” Jane had responded, forcing a smile onto her face. “I’m fine. I have to go now, but Marcy will be with you, OK?”

Adele hadn’t looked reassured. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s at the hospital. With your mommy.” Jane had knelt down and gathered the little girl into her arms for a hug. “Your mommy’s coming home soon,” she’d whispered into Adele’s ear, “so you can all be a family again. Isn’t that great!”

Adele had pulled away after a moment and looked into her face seriously. “Why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad. I’m happy.” Jane had tried to smile again, but she’d felt the tears threatening as she looked back at the little girl.

“You’re sad,” Adele had said.

Jane knew there was no point in arguing. “Sometimes things are happy for some people and sad for other people,” she’d tried to explain.

Adele had studied her face for a moment, thinking over her statement before answering back. “Is it because you wanted to be my mommy?”

Now, Jane tried desperately to blot the child’s question out of her mind as she sat on the cold tile bathroom floor with the box in her hands. She read over the instructions again, and then looked down at her watch. Not quite time yet. She reached for the open bottle sitting on the floor next to her. A little souvenir, she thought to herself, picking it up and eyeing the label.

2002
Cabernet Noir
Caldwell, Idaho
The Wine House

She closed her eyes and held the bottle’s opening to her nose, inhaling deeply. Adam couldn’t begrudge her the bottles of red wine she’d stashed in her suitcase before she’d left the house. He probably wasn’t going to have much use for them now anyway, the way things were looking up.

She tilted her head back and took a long pull of the liquid. No point being shy about it. It was already her second bottle of the night. She felt the queasiness return as the room started to spin again.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily the wine talking. She’d felt sick the whole ride on the train. She’d never had a problem with motion sickness before, but this time she’d had to run to the filthy little train bathroom every five minutes. She must have eaten something off. Or maybe she’d picked up some kind of bug. She swallowed against the acid rising in her throat and took another sip of wine to get the taste out of her mouth.

“Is it because you wanted to be my mommy?”

Adele’s question rang in her ears. Jane closed her eyes again, but instead of seeing Adele’s face this time, she saw another little girl. A curly-headed, red-haired little girl. An orphan. The one from the movie. The one who got a family of her very own. The one who whose story had a happy ending. The one whose story wasn't true.

Jane rose to her feet unsteadily, gripping the bathroom sink as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Time should be up now, she thought, glancing one last time at the empty box of hair dye. She lifted up the edge of the shower cap she was wearing to peek underneath. Ready.

She saluted to herself in the mirror and then opened her mouth and began to belt at the top of her lungs, singing the words to the song that had popped into her head. The lucky little orphan Annie theme song.

The sun'll come out tomorrow,
So ya gotta hang on till tomorrow,
Come what may.

Jane pulled off the shower cap with a flourish and watched as her wavy hair cascaded down around her shoulders – the red flames extinguished, replaced by an inky black.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya tomorrow!
You're always a day away.

Then she turned, as another wave of nausea overcame her, and she heaved the contents of her stomach into the toilet.